We had another full and fascinating meeting of the Group last night, welcoming a number of first-time visitors. We began with a series of celebrations and good news.
We have received confirmation that the Group has been selected for an Award of Merit for Heritage Advocacy in the 2013 City of Vancouver Heritage Awards. The award ceremony is at the Georgia Hotel on May 27. We are very proud recipients.
That was good news, followed by the great news that we now have the funds to complete the revitalization of the Shelly’s 4X Sign at Victoria and William. The sign has suffered badly in the elements since it was revealed last year when the stucco covering was removed during renovations prior to the opening of the Via Tevere Restaurant.
We have received a substantial contribution of $2,000 from the Via Tevere Restaurant, for which we are very grateful. In addition we have received $1,500 from a North Hastings Community Grant which allows us to celebrate the sign and its neighbouring area in a proper way. Once again we are extraordinarily grateful for their assistance. We have also applied for additional grants to complete the work but, in the meanwhile, we will top up the budget from our own funds.
Michael Kluckner has already put up temporary protection on the sign and now we just need a stretch of five or six days good weather to dry out the wood and for artist Victoria Oginski to work her magic. We are hoping to get this completed within a month or so.
Later, early in the summer, we will be having a big celebratory party for the sign and its position within the neighbourhood. You can expect food and music, a scavenger hunt, history tours and a lot of fun! As we firm up dates and details, we will post them here.
And the good news just rolled on. We have now put up all 25 of this year’s Centenary Birthday Signs on a wide range of wonderful houses in Grandview that are at least one hundred years old. We have established a page on this site where you can find a map of all the houses along with architectural and historical details. If you happen to have more information about any of these houses, please send it in and we’ll update the map.
For the 2012 Signs campaign, we had a lovely birthday party, and we decided to do another one for the 2013 campaign. This year’s party will be at 1:30pm on Saturday 4th May on Grandview Park opposite 1636 Charles Street. More details to follow, but everyone is welcome to join us in this celebration of Grandview’s glorious heritage houses.
Michael Kluckner gave a presentation on some lessons we have learned from this year’s campaign. As we were preparing the final list of 2013 houses, we were approached by the owner of a house on Woodland and we were delighted to give a sign as we had documentation that the original house had been built in 1907. However, on viewing the property, Michael and others became suspicious about its actual date.
The 1907 building permit said it was a $750 cottage, in the middle of three other $750 cottages; but, this house was clearly bigger than its neighbour, and far too big for a $750 cottage of that age. The 1910 and 1912 maps we looked at showed four square little cottages equidistant apart. However, by the 1927 Fire Insurance map, this house was shown to have grown and moved a lot closer to its southern neighbour. And aerial photos revealed that the roof had been significantly altered.
So, although there is a 1907 buildng permit, and even though the same owners had the property from 1908 to 1952, it seems certain that between 1912 and 1927 they demolished the original cottage and replaced it with a much larger house. This goes to show that documentation isn’t everything!
The meeting continued in great style with the third in Eric Phillip’s marvelous Heritage House Mechanics and Materials series. This presentation — with excellent visuals and a lot of hard-won personal knowledge — was about the difference between traditional timber framing, balloon framing, and Western Platform framing. It was fascinating. We will work on Eric to prepare this series for web access as soon as possible because it deserves a wider audience.
It was agreed that next month our presentation will be Michael Kluckner on house types/styles in Grandview. That promises to be another fascinating lesson.
This image is constructed from two maps (343.10 and 343.11) in the City of Vancouver Archives collection. The series of maps is captioned as being “hand coloured to show tax sale property for sale, property with no water, street widening and drainage, replotting, reserved land for schools, reserved land for parks, sundry land, capital assets not including schools and parks, schools, and parks, as applicable.” It is not clear what colours are meant to represent what item but, from other data I have collected, I would suggest that the houses marked in red were those in tax trouble.
